Mariana Rondón's acclaimed Venezuelan film Pelo Malo (pictured), will have it's U.S. Premier as part of the 2014 lineup of the Tribeca Film Festival, running April 16-27 in New York City. Acclaimed by indieWIRE as a "a bold and intelligently perceptive film," Rondón’s feature film was the winner of Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival, becoming the first Venezuelan film to ever win the top honors at the Spanish Festival. The filmmaker will travel to New York to participate in her film’s U.S. Premiere.

Winner of the Special Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Awards at the Thessaloniki Film Festival and the Best Director and Best Screenplay Awards at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Pelo Malo will have a U.S. theatrical run in different cities across the country this fall.

In Pelo Malo, Junior is a nine-year-old boy who has stubbornly curly hair, or “bad hair.” He wants to have it straightened for his yearbook picture, like a fashionable pop singer with long, ironed hair. This puts him at odds with his mother Marta, a young, unemployed widow.

Junior, Marta, and his baby brother live in a large multi-family building. Overwhelmed by what it takes to survive in the chaotic city of Caracas, Marta finds it increasingly difficult to tolerate Junior’s fixation with his looks. The more Junior tries to look sharp and make his mother love him, the more she rejects him. His paternal grandmother, a witness to this rejection, asks Marta to give her the boy so that he can look after her. Marta refuses and tries to correct her son’s obsession by "setting an example," a cruel moment which was meant to be a lesson. Junior finds himself cornered, face to face with a painful decision.

Cinema Tropical's programs are made possible with the support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support ofGovernor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. They are also supported, in part, by public funds from theNew York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the National Endowments for the Arts